good morning. i'm chris jansing. two big showdowns today on capitol hill over the fiscal cliff and ambassador susan rice. both of these have been escalating, and on the fiscal cliff especially the clock is definitely ticking. let me give you a rundown of what's happening in the next couple hours. first, ambassador rice is meeting with two republican senators today. right now she's in with susan collins of maine. later she'll meet with bob corker. yesterday, too, she was on the hill defending herself over her comments following the benghazi attack, but the gop leaders only seemed more entrenched in their opposition. in addition, anytime now house democrats and house republicans will hold separate news conferences to talk about their closed-door meet ings on the fiscal cliff. at 11:30, president obama will make remarks at the white house surrounded by middle class americans who he says would see

their taxes go up if congress can't make a deal. later he's hosting big business leaders to talk about ways to cut the deficit. joining me to talk about this, "washington post" political columnist day ma milbank and terence page. >> good morning. >> clarence, big development with tom cole breaking from his party and saying they should support an immediate extension of bush-era tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000. and then deal with the higher income tax breaks later. this is the key argument the president has been making. he says this has to get done. it is a sign the democrats' arguments are working? is tom cole an outlier among republicans? what's going on? >> it's a sign of the diversity in the republican party and that's something that president obama's team is trying to work on. they're trying to develop divisions and to break the logjam, the big showdown that's

going on between speaker boehner and congress on one side and president obama and his team on the other. so it's a sign, but we've still got a long ways to go. >> if you can believe it, the negotiations got arguably more complicated yesterday when several leading democrats called on the president to demand republicans agree to raise the debt ceiling as part of any fiscal deal. let me play what harry reid said about that. >> we would be somewhat foolish to work out something on the cliff and is six weeks later republicans could pull the same game they did before. >> dana, any indication progress is being made on this or just more roadblocks coming into the picture? >> you know, i was just as a breakfast where bowles and simpson were speaking, and it was a very gloomy and pessimistic affair, and erskine bowles was saying he sees barely eve an one-third possibility of

avoiding the fiscal cliff. it appears everybody is just posturing right now. the president is doing it, congressional leaders are doing it. the few who do seem to be willing to compromise are for now the outliers. in fact, more obstacles are being thrown up, and we've got all of ten legislative days left in which to fix this problem. >> well, gloomy and pessimistic are not the words that we want to hear or i think, clarence, that we expected to hear because it seems that before the election there was actually some uniform opinion this absolutely was going to get done by the end of the year. what changed? >> well, it's so easy to say in general we're going to work this out, talk, and have the nice photo-ops, but when it comes down to dollars and cents it's the same old argument that democrats want to see some kind of an extension of tax cults for those making less than $250,000 a year but not for the wealthy. and the republicans still want to see some proposed cut, some kind of numbers on how they're going to reduce entitlements,

especially medicare spending. so we're not close to actually having those kind of talks yet. what we have right now is a pr phase, a public relations phase, where both sides are trying to work the business community or work main street behind their side of the argument. >> and it does seem that we have a split not just about what needs to get done or how we get to this deal, dana, but about the urgency of what would happen if we didn't come to a deal. the white house put out that 14-page report on monday and had all these frightening details about what happens to the economy if we go off the fiscal cliff, a key point they say consumer spending would take a $200 billion hit next year. is there a growing sense, though, dana, that going off the cliff would be preferable to caving on issues that are important frankly to both sides? >> certainly the extremes on both sides are saying that it may be preferable. it is entirely possible that that's what will happen. sort of like those discussions

of can we survive, you know, the nuclear winter. it is -- the good news is that a deal is fairly obvious what needs to be put into it. it's just a question of when the political will comes together. it can be done very quickly if people are willing to, but it does seem as if they are now preparing for the blame game that follows with the assumption that they're going off the fiscal cliff with whatever economic calamity comes with it. >> i want to bring in congressman peter defazio, a democrat from oregon. good morning. >> good morning. >> you're one of the folks who have said, correct me if i'm wrong, that republicans won't accept tax hikes for wealthy and we might as well go off the fiscal cliff and take it up after january 1st. is that an accurate representation of your position? and if so, why? >> sure. well, first, off the cliff is an unbelievable exaggeration. there's no cliff. in fact, the only tax rate that changes on january 1st is we do away with the social security/fica holiday. the other tax rates we would have ample time to deal with, and we would be then bargaining from a position of strength.

the republicans would be free from their pledge to grover norquist about not raising taxes. and we would be talking about who is going to get some tax relief -- middle-class families, you know, people with children, and other targeted cuts, and the republicans could say, gee, i wanted to give the rich a tax break but we just couldn't get there. but, hey, we helped ow 98% of the people in america. i think we'd be barg frng strength. i'm very worried that we're getting back to where we were two years ago where the president was put in a box or a year ago when the president got put in a box over the republicans threatening to defall on our debt. we need to bargain from a stronger position and going over this bump in the road would give us that. >> as you know, there are a lot of people who would disagree with you about that, not just about the financial numbers per se, say the $200 billion the president is talking act next year, but also from a psychological standpoint. we've already seen wall street

reacting in a negative way, concerned exactly about what would happen if a deal doesn't get made and their growing sense that it might not happen. consumer confidence has been up. americans concerned that their taxes are going to go up. you don't think that those are legitimate concerns? >> i think we can assure people that we would fix it early in january. wall street -- >> why should they believe that, congressman, with all due respect when what they were hearing before the election was it was going to get done by the end of the year? >> i don't know where they heard that from or they heard it from credibly. look, the republicans want to be reasonable, great. but we're still dealing with the existing congress. it's a lame duck. and you've got a lot of the most radical tea party members who lost their elections. they're still here. they're still pushing the republican conference. next year it will be better. we can do this very quickly in january. we can assure people that. wall street, they are going to get hysterical because they want to drive tax cuts for the wealthy. they want to keep the special tax breaks for hedge fund

managers and all the other goodies they're getting. so, yeah, they'll manipulate the market and try and frighten congress into doing a bad deal. no deal, and going over the bump in the road and fixing it in january is better than a bad deal. >> let me ask you about one particular issue that has come um among the many that is of great concern to millions of americans, and that's the mortgage deduction. former treasury secretary larry summers said this morning it should be part of negotiations. let me play that for you. >> i think it should be being phased out. and the advantage of a phaseout is frankly housing is coming back but it can use a bunch of help. and if we phase it out, then people have an incentive to buy their houses sooner rather than later and so you can give the economy an extra lift. >> that makes the housing industry very nervous and some american, too. but do you agree with what larry summers said? >> absolutely not. i don't think i've ever agreed with larry summers on anything.

he was a disaster as an adviser to obama. that's crazy. the one tax break most middle-income families in this country can get unlike everything that's available to the wealthy and the spk lay or thes and everybody else is their mortgage interest deduction. i'm going to fight to keep that. >> congressman peter defazio, thank you very much. great to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> gentlemen, let me go back to this whole idea of the impact beyond the real numbers, just, you know, analysis of what it might mean financially, because there are several also pekts of going off the fiscal cliff. obviously those economic implications. but if this drags on, clarence, into the new year and beyond, could it have serious implications for the president's second-term agenda, stalling other initiatives until these issues can be worked out? >> i think on the democratic side there's a lot of confidence that every time congress has gone over the cliff before, if you will, look at the government shutdowns in the '90s, for example, it's actually played well for the president.

in that case it was president clinton. now we have president obama. and coming out of his election victory, there's a lot of confidence on their side that as congressman defazio was describing if we go over that cliff, it's a fiscal cliff or it's a fiscal bluff, because what we're talking about is restoring the taxes, tax rates that were around before the bush tax cults came along. we're talking about something that will not affect working-class people except for that loss in the payroll tax they vacation. who's going to get blamed for that? chances are the democrats figure the republicans will be blamed. there's the two-step option, which is let's kick the can down the road for another year, so to speak, while negotiations continue on the long-term grand bargain. that's always in the back hip pocket of members of congress as

well. so i don't know that they're feeling the same kind of sense of panic that a lot of us outside are feeling. >> i just got handed this, and let me ask you for your instant analysis on this, dana. it comes from the office of the white house press secretary. it says on thursday governor romney will have a private lunch at the white house with president obama in the private dining room, the first opportunity they've had to visit since the election. there will be no press coverage of this meeting. was this signalled? did we expect this? >> it was. they said as early as election night i think that this sort of thing was going to cur. it was postponed a little bit because of the romney remarks about gifts, but they seem to have gotten past that. i suspect you'll see a photo release of them strolling down the colonade in the white house and making nice. but i wouldn't expect any advance on the fiscal cliff to come out of that. >> dana milbank, clarence paige, thanks very much. >> thank you, chris. another story that won't go away. tampa socialite joe kelley, the

woman at center of the e-mail fiasco with general petraeus and allen, she's fighting back. her high-profile lawyer released some of her e-mails and phone calls and abbe lowell says they prove she didn't do anything wrong and she was never more than friends with either general. he also says he will sue if there are any more leaks. he blames the feds for this information coming out in the first place. now, at the same time, the "new york times" is reporting that the investigation into general allen is now focused on between 60 and 70 e-mails that he did exchange with allen, and they say, quote, they bear a fair amount of scrutiny at least according to one defense official. ecipe from stouffer's starts with ground beef, unions, and peppers baked in a ketchup glaze with savory gravy and mashed russet potatoes. what makes stouffer's meatloaf best of all? that moment you enjoy it at home. stouffer's. let's fix dinner.

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this is another potentially important day for u.s. ambassador susan rice. she's on capitol hill defending her response to the benghazi

attack to maine senator susan collins. rice is said to be the president's top pick to replace secretary of state hillary clinton, but she failed to win over her sharpest gop critics yesterday. >> we are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't get. >> clearly the impression that was given, the information given to the american people was wrong. in fact, ambassador rice said today absolutely it was wrong. >> i want to bring in senator john barroso, republican from wyoming and a member of the foreign relations committee. good morning. >> thanks, chris. >> you said you would vote no on the nomination if susan rice was secretary of state, and if nominated you said it would be the most negative vote since they started in 1825. so what is your problem with susan rice? >> well, i think that she misled the american people five days after a terrorist attack. it happened, killed four brave

americans, and really either didn't know, which she should have known, failed to ask the questions that she should have been asking or it was intentional to mislead the american people. people all across the country knew this happened on 9/11, knew it was a terrorist attack. but she went on and basically defied what the president of libya said when he said al qaeda was involved. she said no. she continued to go back to this story that had to do with a spontaneous demonstration and about a bad video. and the bottom line is for secretary of state, you want somebody who actually can think about these issues, makes reasoned decisions, and asks tough questions. and i think she has failed that. and to me she has disqualified herself for secretary of state. >> here's what some democrats had to say about the rice nomination. let me play this for you, senator. >> i think it wouldn't be fair

to disqualify her based on what she said on those sunday morning shows. >> i find it mind-boggling that some of the gop senators continue to go after her. it's completely unjustified. and i can only conclude that having failed to deny the president a second term they now want to deny him the cabinet of his choice. >> congressman schiff isn't the only one suggesting that opponents are playing politics with this. in addition to that, look, you've been on sunday talk show, you know how they work, particularly within an administration. what happened here was hillary clinton was too tired. she had come off a very hard week. and basically susan rice got briefed and she said what she was told. is your beef really with the intelligence community here and not susan rice? >> i just believe she has actually disqualified herself to be secretary of state. if the president wants an easy confirmation hearing and an easy confirmation process, what he would do is nominate jeohn kerr,

who is eminently qualified to be secretary of state, and i believe he would sail through in the nominating process. >> let me read the statement released by ambassador rice following her meeting with senators yesterday. "while we certainly wish that we charles hadlohad had perfect int days after the terrorist attack, as is offen the case the intelligence assessment has evolved. we stressed that neither i nor anyone else in the administration intended to mislead the american people." what would you respond to that? what would be the reason to mislead? >> well, i think she didn't have the sound judgment to ask the tough questions before going on five different sunday shows and laying out a line that the american people did not believe and we all know now was not true. the secretary of state is fourth in line to the presidency of the united states, and i just think that she has disqualified herself to be in that position. >> let me ask you a political question. what's the advantage on your side of making this potentially -- and do you think

it will be -- a messy conversation fight give than the democrats have the votes here? >> well, if the president is really interested in having a smooth confirmation process -- and this is a time when i want to work together with the president on a solution for the fiscal cliff, the financial problems that we're facing as a nation, the challenges ahead -- he wants a smooth confirmation, he ought to nominate john kerry, who's head of the foreign relations committee, knows the issues around the world, and would ease ily be confirmed as secretary of state. >> let me switch gears quickly and get your assessment, senator, on where we're standing on the fiscal cliff and what you think the key issue is. >> well, i would -- >> we seem to have lost his audio. and so i want to thank senator john barrasso for being with us this morning. should women be moved to the front lines in battle? four servicewomen have joined forces with the aclu suing the defense department to end the ban on women in direct combat. >> the modern battlefield means

that there's no front lines and there's no safe areas. every time a woman or any service member sets foot into iraq or afghanistan, they are serving in a combat zone. >> the plaintiffs say the current rules hurt their military career prospects and limit their chances for promotion. a pentagon spokesman said they are committed to expanding roles for women in the military. look, if you have copd like me, you know it can be hard to breathe, and how that feels. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms by keeping my airways open for 24 hours. plus, it reduces copd flare-ups. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that does both. spiriva handihaler tiotropium bromide inhalation powder does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma,

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vice president biden will lead a u.s. delegation to the inauguration on saturday, a trip president obama admits he envies. >> any excuse to go to mexico i'm always game. in fact, i'm jealous of joe biden. >> secretary of state hillary clinton, meantime, who is expected to step down in the months ahead, is reflecting back on the last four years. who has impacted her more than anyone else she's met over hundreds of thousands of miles on the road? >> well, i've met a lot of really extraordinary people. i've been very fortunate to do that over the course of my life. but if i have to pick only one, for all the reasons that are well-known publicly and all the lessons that i learned from him personally, it would be nelson mandela. >> former senate majority leader bob dole is expected to be released from walter reed medical center today after being hospitalized for what's being called a minor procedure.

dole turns 90 next year. seven protesters bared it all outside speaker john boehner's office. three women were arrested by capitol police on charges of lewd and indecent acts. they were protesting possible cuts to aids research. finally, i know you've been waiting for it, the todd akin story. the defeated missouri senate candidate who drew international notoriety after his legitimate rape remark tells the "st. louis post dispatch" he's actually considering taking advantage of his newfound fame by writing a book. and before i get to my must-read, i want you to know that i greatly respect the constitution and the bill of rights. but today i argue for abridging our rights in this one instance. parents should not be able to saddle their children with crazy names that will haunt them all their days on earth. so today's must-read is about a baby whose name makes gwyneth paltrow's apple and jason lee's

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good to see you both. >> good to be here. >> david, something else speaker boehner said moments ago, as you know, congressman tom cole broke with most of the rest of republicans saying, look, we should just take the tax breaks for people making under $250,000 a year and worry about the upper-income folks later. john boehner just said no, he doesn't agree with that. what do you think's going to happen here? >> well, the next couple weeks as we begin to sort of lay out these sort of contrasting positions that the president and the speaker have, look, what the spoker's focused on here is, yes, we obviously need to raise more revenue. there's a disagreement in terms between the president and the speaker in terms of how you do that. the speaker's looking at doing things that he believes will not negatively impact the business community, and he thinks what the president is offering will. and so how they work through and resolve that is obviously going to be central to a deal. but there's clearly at this point a disagreement. >> and, steve, on the democrat side, the president is saying

he's doing all these meetings and traveling over the next couple days to talk with business leaders, to talk to real americans, because frankly, this is something that has a real impact on all of our bottom lines. it's going to hit every american taxpay taxpayer's pocketbook. mitch mcconnell, however, has been critical of what he sees as a pr effort. >> rather than sitting down with lawmakers of both parties and working out an agreement, he's back on the campaign trail presumably with the same old talking points that we're all quite familiar with. look, we already know the president's a very good campaigner. we continue gratch lit him on his re-election. what we don't know is whether he has the leadership qualities necessary to lead his party to a bipartisan agreement. >> so should the president instead of going on the road be working with members of his own party and get them and republican leaders in a room and maybe, steve, just not let him leave until they have a deal? >> well, my guess is we'll be doing that at some point before december 31st. i think the president has every right and responsibility to go

talk to people all over the country and talk to business leaders and talk to real people in washington about what he thinks the priorities should be. i think he's working very hard to make sure we don't go off the cliff. i think people should not think that it's a good idea to go off the cliff, because on january 1st, on january 15th, regular americans who live paycheck to paycheck are going to see a tax increase, and i think tom cole is exactly right -- let's deal with the tax rates for people who make below $250,000. there's a bill in the house they could pass tomorrow that the senate already passed. take that issue off the table so working americans know their paycheck is going to be the same on january 15th as it was on december 15th. >> david, it does seem like a last-minute messaging change because we did hear for a long time that if we go off the fiscal cliff, it is, indeed, a cliff and that the implications could be catastrophic if not on january 1st or january 10th, it's a bad thing. and we were talking earlier about how already wall street has been made nervous by this and a lot of americans could be

made nervous by the prospect of their tax rates going up. so, i mean, how long can this go on before they really feel the pressure on both sides that we really do have to make a deal? >> i think they feel the pressure on both sides right now. i agree with steve that going off this fiscal cliff is not the option by any stretch of anybody who's involved in this and they're trying to get to some resolution. having said that, as you well know, many times these negotiations use up every possible minute they possibly have available to them and we could go right to the end here. having said that, we're dealing with some pretty big principles to try to resolve in a 30-day period so, i think you'll see a lot of activity. i think you'll see both sides talking with the public at large in terms of trying to get public support behind their positions. having said that, i think that you see huge motivations on both sides that they do not want to go off the fiscal cliff, and i think that's clearly where the president and speaker are at this point. not wanting to go off the fiscal cliff. >> steve, i think in addition to

talking to the american people, the president obviously has already had some conversations with big-time business leaders, some ceos. he's meeting with more of them today, a second meeting. and this is an area -- and i should also mention that a number of these people at this meeting today were supporters of mitt romney. but i'm wondering if this is an area where they are likely to support him, because a lot of ceos, a lot of business people have been very concerned not just about the potential impact on consumer spending but, again, the uncertainty about whether a deal gets done and what that will mean for wall street and whether it will be pretty negative. smart move on the part of the president? how does he leverage that even with people who have not been his big supporters? >> i think he has an area of agreement with them and he'll reach out to people where he has an area of agreement. i think a lot of business leaders want srn ti and a lot of business leaders realize there is a balanced approach that could be worked with with both parties deeding sp with spending and revenue if republicans are

willing to raise the rate on those who make the most. there are already rational people in the business community speaking out specifically on that topic and i think we're going to see more and more voices coming saying we shouldn't go off the cliff over this narrow issue that a minority of the majority in the house of representatives wants to seem to have a fight on. >> steve elmendorf, dave -- sorry, david. real quickly? >> there is the spending side to this. one of this things that has not been discussed very much at all and we've seen redskins resistan -- resistance in terms of democrats is their side. >> david winston, steve elmendorf, always good to see you, gentlemen. also making news this morning, police have arrested three factory supervisors suspected of locking the gates at a bangladesh textile plant just as workers were trying to escape a massive fire. more than 100 work ers died. thousands continue to protest and demand justice for those responsible. more fallout from the

egyptian president's power grab. two of the country's highest courts have suspended work to protest his decree, and judges say they won't go back until mohamed morsi suspends his ultimate power declaration. protests are planned on saturday. a 6-year-old boy died when this bus crashed into a house on new york's long island. police say the bus swerved to avoid hitting a pedestrian but then plowed into the home. that little boy was just sitting in the front room. tobacco companies have to fess up and say they lied about the dangers of smoking. a judge has ordered cigarette makers to run corrective ads that begin with, quote, deliberately deceive the american public. it's part of an ongoing case that started way back in 1999. well, the london tabloids are all buzzing about, yes, kate middleton's new haircut. well, not exactly a dramatic difference. it looks like she got some layers in the front. some people are saying maybe bangs. wow. maybe eve an new dye job.

she is touring cambridge today with prince william. and all the guys are kind of shaking their head, going, what? if you're like jansing and company, you've got an office pool because you think you're going to win the big half-ball powerball jackpot. but should you be wary of your own co-workers? a live report later in this hour. get ready to pay more for the christmas getaway. mandy drury has what's moving your money and a new air fare forecast. it's a little discouraging. >> it is discouraging, isn't it. you might have to pay roughly 8% more than you did last year. if you take off the saturday before the holiday and return the saturday after, that fare could be as much as 27% higher. fares over the new year, by the way, they're roughly 5% higher than last year according to orbitz. it looks at ticket prices and hotel rates for the most popular holiday spots on its website.

an example, i will cost about $406 on average to travel to new york for christmas. that compares with $371 for the new year so, you might want to just put your holiday back a little bit. and hotel rates are also up in some cities. the average daily room rate in los angeles for christmas is now 10% higher than last year, and a new year's day on average is going to cost 14% more a day. >> ouch. >> yeah. bottom line is there's really no getting away from it. sorry, chris. bearer of bad news. >> we often make fun of the fact or get maybe disgusted by the fact that some ceos who get into trouble leave with a golden parachute. i don't know what the situation is here, but a top apple exec got the walking papers because of that disastrous debut of the apple maps app. >> right. there are some reports suggesting that apple has let go the manager responsible for that troubled mapping app. his name is richard williamson. now, you're absolutely right. the new map app has been

criticized for things like unreliable searches and lack of directions. and naturally, if this is, indeed, true, apple just wants to restore confidence in the product. it might be worth noting, though, this is certainly not the first or only situation like this, because microsoft also fired a top exec just 15 days after the launch of windows 8 over that whole start button fiasco. that's raised questions about whether or not there will be return of the traditional windows start menu. bottom line here, chris, people are just resistant to change, i think. >> i'm one of them. once i learn something i don't want to have to learn something new. >> i am with you on that. >> cnbc's mandy drury, thank you so much. >> thank you. if you think you're going to win half a billion dollars in today's powerball jackpot, reality check. you've got better odds of dating a supermodel, which are 88,000 to 1. where did they get that number? becoming president. 10 million to 1. becoming an astronaut. odds are more than 12 million to one.

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man's world when it comes to powerful positions of leading house committees. john boehner released the names of 19 members of congress appointed to leadership positions. take a look at this picture. not a single woman. now, there is a chance a woman could share the ethics and house administration committees, which have yet to be chosen. that is in spite of the fact that women will occupy more seats in congress come january. 81 in the house, 20 in the senate. those are remarkable numbers considering how far women have had to come in politics. and a new study finds that their success this past election may be due at least in part to a decline in media gender bias. let me bring in the co-authors of that study, jennifer lawless and danny hayes. good morning. good to see both of you. >> thanks for having us. >> good morning. >> jennifer, tell me what you found. what was the big headline? >> the big headline is that we've known for a long time that when women run for office they

fare as well as their male counterpart, both in terms of vote totals and fund-raising receipts. but there seems to be evidence the campaign trail they navigate is quite similar as well, both in terms of public opinion and media coverage. we uncover nod differences in how male and female candidates were treated. >> when you were looking at, this danny, what were you looking for? give us some examples of things you would have seen in the past that were missing this time around. >> well, traditionally, women tend to be portrayed in the media as empathetic or compassionate, possessing integrity, traits stereotypically associated with women in society generally. but they were less likely to be portrayed as strong releaders o competent like the male candidates. we essentially found that, for example, women were no less likely to be portrayed as strong, competent leaders an than were their male counterparts, a big change from what we've seen in the past. >> the other thing you'll hear,

jennifer, when you talk to women in office, it gets very frustrating to them that so much is made of their hair, their makeup, their overall general appearance. have you seen a decline in that at all? >> i'm not sure we've seen a decline. the good news is they're covered substantively just as much as their hair or shoes or pocketbook receive coverage. but what we have seen is more equity. you have to ask beyond paul ryan, who received quite a bit of coverage regarding his ill-fitting suit or body fat. >> immediately sent him to the tailor to take in his suits. danny, is there a sense of why this is happening? is this just a general societal change? is it because there are more women out there? is there a bit of a hillary clinton effect? what's going on, do you think? >> i think there's some truth in all of that. a couple things we point out in the research is attitudes about women's place in society have been changing over the last few decades to the point now that relatively few americans, for example, view women as less

emotionally suited for politics than they used to. but another big part of the change is simply the changes in the party polarization. that is, today in american politics is parties have ideologically moved apart. as voters have become more concerned with issues and ideological differences between the parties that has made the gender running for office less salient. for most voters it doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman. what matters is republican or democrat. >> jennifer, i'm curious about the reaction you're getting. the first thing i thought looking through the study is when you talk to folks who are recruiting candidates particularly for congress, they've had some real problems getting women for some of the reasons you talk act, for some of the gender stereotyping but also because they approach governing very differently. but i'm wondering, do you think that it might result in more women being willing to run for high positions? >> well, i'd say two things. the first is that by no means do we want to diminish the experiences of the individual

women. we didn't find any systematic gender bias or stereotyping, but that's not to say that there aren't very high-profile examples of women who have had to endure coverage that is less than favorable and less than fair. in terms of the big challenge, is about recruiting women. women are less likely than men not only to be recruited to run for office but also to think they're qualified to run. if we can disseminate the message that voters are willing to elect women, that the media cover women fairly, those might be two important steps to entering the arena for female potential candidates. >>fascinating study. thanks for coming on. >> thank you. >> today's tweet of the day from congressman jared polis. "romney didn't share his binders full of women with house republicans. they aren't nominating any women as committee chairs." [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news

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feeling lucky? you'd have to be the luckiest person many the country, maybe the world to win the powerball lottery today. the jackpot is now at least half a billion dollars. the odds of winning, 1 in 175 million. nbc's mara schiavo campo joins us. i did see the number of tickets that have been sold. off the charts. >> reporter: yeah. here at this location there's been a steady stream of customers that have come in. they've sold about $1,300 worth of powerball tickets just today, and that's happening all over the country. it's estimated 547 million tickets have been sold, more than a billion dollars in sales, and that increases as the jackpot grows and the attention to the jackpot grows, more people run out to try to get their piece of the dream. >> then you've got all these office pools.

i have to say we have the winning one at jansing and company, although nightly news is sent me an e-mail saying they have an office pool. somebody showed me this contract they printed out from the powerball website so they can -- i mean, have you talked to people? how do you handle this with the office pool? there have been some disputes after people have won. >> reporter: absolutely. and there have been several cases where a group of co-workers have won. here's the key. you have to be really clear. you can't borrow a dollar from somebody. you can't ask somebody to pick up a ticket on your behalf. you have to keep records, have a photo copy or an e-mail with the numbers that have been chosen for the tickets. and you have to know who's in the pool and exactly how much they've put in, because the last thing you want to do is start haggling over this after there's a winning at stake, might land you in court. >> here's one of these -- that one of the people have, they have all the tickets here. these are not the winning tickets. i'm not in this pool. >> reporter: i don't think you have the winning ticket either

because the northeast bureau where i'm part of the pool, i have a good feeling about that. >> you do? we'll find out at 10:59 eastern time tonight. i would think the chances are with so many people playing that more than a few people might hit this jackpot. >> absolutely. the odds are 1 in 175 million, so they are pretty astronomical. but the winner isn't the only one who gets a little something because the state and the federal government, they get something, too. the state gets a dollar of every ticket sold. states and cities can take an additional 5% to 12%, the federal government gets their cut, 25% in taxes, and even the vendor, places like this, they get up to $100,000 or 1% of the prize winning. everybody has a little something at stake. >> good luck to you, mara. >> you, too. thomas roberts is up next. do you remember when chey used to say a dollar and a dream? i was shocked to find out it's $2. >> buy a lot of dreams, though. i was hitly lightning and attacked by a horde of bees on my way in so my odds are

betting. >> okay. >> chris, thank you. we will be talking powerball madness, asking our viewers how would you spend half a billion dollars. nearly 30 people have entered into our little pool on the 11:00 show. topping our agenda, more serious news concerning susan rice's capitol pr tour. it rolls on. what are republicans' reasons for vowing to block her possible nomination for secretary of state? we'll dig down deep on that. and guess who's coming to dinner? mitt romney for his first face-to-face meeting with president obama since the election. will the fiscal cliff be on the agenda? and what will president obama say when he speaks live next hour at the white house? we'll be flanked by middle-class families whose wallets could be impacted if congress fails to reach a deal. ♪

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